Arthur Norton Milgram (1912–1960) was a mathematician of the 20^th century. He made contributions in functional analysis, combinatorics, differential geometry, topology, partial differential equations, and Galois theory. Perhaps one of his more famous contributions was the Lax-Milgram theorem—a theorem in functional analysis that is particularly applicable in the study of partial differential equations. In Emil Artin's book Galois Theory [1], Milgram also discussed some applications of Galois theory. Milgram also co-authored Verallgemeinerung eines graphentheoretischen Satzes von Rédei (a result in graph theory) with Tibor Gallai in 1960.

In 1937, Milgram received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked under the supervision of John Kline [2] (a student of Robert Lee Moore). His dissertation was titled Decompositions and Dimension of Closed Sets in Rⁿ.

Milgram advised 2 students at Syracuse University in the 1940s and 1950's (Robert M. Exner [3] and Adnah Kostenbauder [4]). In the 1950s, Milgram moved to the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and helped found Minnesota's well-known PDE group ([5]). At Minnesota, Milgram was also the Ph.D. advisor for Robert Duke Adams [6]. It is also worth noting that Milgram's son R. James (Richard) Milgram [7] (Professor Emeritus at Stanford [8]) also studied mathematics and received his Ph.D. from Minnesota.

[edit] See also

• Babuška-Lax-Milgram theorem
• Lions–Lax–Milgram theorem

[edit] References

• Newsletter, 14, School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, Spring 2008, http://www.math.umn.edu/newsletter/2008/news2008.pdf .
• Kibbey, Donald E. (1980), A History of S. U.'s Mathematics Department, Dept. of Mathematics at Syracuse University, http://math.syr.edu/DeptHistory.htm .
• Hemmingsen, Erik (2000), Recollections of the Department of Mathematics until 1960, Dept. of Mathematics at Syracuse University, http://math.syr.edu/DeptRecollections.htm .

[edit] External links

• MR500962
• Arthur Milgram at the Mathematics Genealogy Project